


they were looking for a woman with a command of the language

by voodoochild



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin
Genre: (who is definitely not elia's son but it's politically expedient to believe so), Dorne (A Song of Ice and Fire), Gen, Post-War of the Five Kings, Vignette, arianne martell is a judgy lady and thinks she knows best, mentions of arianne/aegon, this is much longer than three sentences but i have a lot of arianne emotions, this is not the author bashing female characters, three sentence ficathon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-01
Updated: 2021-02-01
Packaged: 2021-03-12 16:40:14
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 279
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29138682
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/voodoochild/pseuds/voodoochild
Summary: Arianne takes the throne for her family, for Dorne, and for herself.
Kudos: 5





	they were looking for a woman with a command of the language

**Author's Note:**

> Written for rthstewart's 3 Sentence Ficathon 2021 for the prompt [ASOIAF, the war of (five) queens](https://rthstewart.dreamwidth.org/166704.html?thread=8700976#cmt8700976). Title from Cecil Otter's "A Rickety Bridge".

In the Kingdoms, they call her the Traitor Queen; as if one can commit treason against a throne that has never been yours, as if one can betray a monarch who sits on a throne built of blood and falsehoods, as if her aunt wasn't the rightful queen by marriage and her son named heir by the Mad King, as if Arianne had ever held any true loyalty to the Kingdoms to begin with.

Arianne did not take the throne from her husband - she took it because she would allow no one else to claim it, for who was the other choice? A child-conqueror from across the sea, mad as her sire, leading horselords and former slaves with a crazed zeal to rip her birthright back? A wolf queen hidden in mockingbird's feathers and bat's wings, and only the gods knew what was being whispered in her ear? The bloodsoaked lioness of the Rock, hoarding her children and arming the Faith to fight her battles, every inch a Lannister trading in the corpses of dead men? The little rose, sweet and prickly, playing the only game permissible to women and hoping for a good outcome while her kings died?

The daughter of Doran Martell, granddaughter of Loreza the Steel Princess, niece to the Red Viper, will not leave Dorne to such influences. Better to gather up the golden remnant of her husband's army, better to whisper to her serpentine cousins, better to study the history her father left for her, because when dragons come to Dorne, dragons _die_ , and all those other creatures? Lions and roses, wolves and birds?

If the spear does not kill you, the sun will.


End file.
